Heart and vascular disease are major problems in the United Sates and throughout the world. Conditions such as atherosclerosis result in blood vessels becoming blocked or narrowed. This blockage can result in lack of oxygenation of the heart, which has significant consequences since the heart muscle must be well oxygenated in order to maintain its blood pumping action.
Occluded, stenotic or narrowed blood vessels may be treated with a number of relatively non-invasive medical procedures including percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA), percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), and atherectomy. These procedures typically include steps of advancing various treatment devices such as balloon catheters, atherectomy catheters, stent delivery catheters and the like over a wire such as a guidewire. In some instances, these devices are deployed over a filter wire, which can be considered to be a guidewire having a filter secured to the distal end thereof.
Often times when treating occluded, stenotic or narrowed blood vessels, one or more medical devices such as those noted above are advanced over a guidewire or filter wire that has previously been advanced to or even beyond a treatment site. One of the challenges faced by the physician or other health care professional in advancing devices over the wire is limiting or even preventing undesirable movement of the wire once the wire has been deployed. In some cases, the user will attempt to hold the wire immobile with one hand while advancing a device over the wire with the other hand.
Therefore, a need remains for a device that will easily and releasably secure a guidewire or filter wire once deployed, thereby freeing the physician or other health care professional to concentrate instead on advancing devices over the guidewire or filter wire.